


White Snake

by Fictionbookworm



Series: Natural Disasters in (Occasionally) Human Form [5]
Category: Naruto, One Piece
Genre: Action/Adventure, Dubious Morality, Gen, Human Experimentation, Humor, Mad Scientists, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Reincarnation, Transmigration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 21:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29089092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fictionbookworm/pseuds/Fictionbookworm
Summary: The government of this new world he found himself in after his death is incredibly incompetent. Just look at all those criminals they’re just letting run around without consequence. So how can they blame him for everything that happened next? For once, he had actually been minding his own business.
Series: Natural Disasters in (Occasionally) Human Form [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1658020
Comments: 8
Kudos: 51





	White Snake

Well, this wasn’t exactly the kind of immortality he’d been hoping for, Orochimaru musses lightly while boredly staring up at the mobile dancing above his head. Being eternally reincarnated as a baby seemed a little more inconvenient than everlasting youth, and he’s not wholly certain it had been something _he_ had done specifically, but… Hmm. Immortality is immortality in any shape or form, isn’t it? And he suspected this was an entirely new world too. After all, in the last three months since he had regained consciousness, he hasn’t sensed the slightest hint of chakra even inside himself, neverminded the people around him. Which should have been impossible. Every living being had chakra, it was a fact a child could tell you. 

He lazily swipes with an uncoordinated hand at the swinging ships, continuing the pretense of being a normal baby for his ‘parents’.

Without the presence of chakra, people and animals must have developed very differently from the people back in the Elemental Countries. Firstly, they’d be missing an entire circulatory system… 

Oh, this was going to be so interesting. He couldn’t wait till he was grown. 

* * *

“Sweetie, why don’t you go play with that child over there?” Mama asks Lorelei, pointing at the pale boy crouching alone in the corner of the local park doing _something_. It looked like he was poking a dark shape with a stick, but his back was covering everything from sight. 

“Oro?” Lorelei’s nose wrinkles. “Don’t wanna. He’s weird. And scary.”

Mama frowns heavily. “Don’t be mean, darling. I’m sure he’s a very nice boy, you just need to get to know him better, that’s all. Now, go on and ask him what he’s doing.”

“Okay.” Lorelei drags out in the way all children did when faced with a parent they knew would not be moved from their decision even by a tantrum, and unwillingly shuffled over to Oro. 

It wasn’t like they haven’t tried being friends before. But even Mattie didn’t manage much, and _everyone_ liked Mattie. It just that Creepy Oro was too smart for them, and acted like an adult. Not a boring adult, he knew a lot of really interesting things their parents would have preferred them not to know and was always willing to share his knowledge, but an adult all the same. He never wanted to play Pirates and Marines, and ball or anything. He preferred to sit in his isolated spot alone and… Lorelei peers over Oro’s shoulder, and her mouth drops open in horror. “Are you disating another squirrel?! You know you’re not allowed to do that! Mattie said so.”

“It’s dissecting.” Oro corrects her in that snooty tone he usually took around kids their age. “And I’m not. It was already dead when I found it.”

“I’m gonna go tell Mama.” Lorelei decides and goes to tattle. Maybe this way Mama will see that Oro is a bad in-flu-ence and not friend material. 

* * *

“Kid, you’re twelve.” The Marine repeats incredulously. 

Orochimaru continues to smile pleasantly. “There are no rules stating a twelve-year-old cannot be recruited. And I am not planning on joining a combat unit. I want to join the Research Department.” 

“But, we only take the best of the best for Research.” The older man says helplessly. “The smartest, people with decades of experience in their respective fields. Like Vegapunk. Do you know who Vagapunk is? He’s the youngest to ever become Head of the Research Department.” 

Orochimaru waves a piece of paper, smile stretching and eyes glinting. “My graduation certificate.”

“From where? Elementary school?” Another Marine scoffs, throwing a card down on the table. Orochimaru had accosted the local recruiters while they were deep in a game at a bar, and they hadn’t been pleased with the interruption. 

“University. I hold several PhDs.”

* * *

“Just because I’m young, it doesn’t mean I’m defenseless.” He tells the pirate who had made the bad decision of attacking the ship Orochimaru had been on with the rest of his unfortunate crew. Idiots, this was clearly a Marnie battleship. What were they expecting but sound defeat?

“Please!” The poor man sobs in pain. He had been pinned by several scalpels to the wooden deck, and now Orochimaru was digging one further into the soft flesh of his tight. 

“You are part of the Longarm Tribe, aren’t you?” Orochimaru ignores the crying man. He shifts until he’s sitting on the pirate’s stomach and softly drags another scalpel down his bared arm, drawing blood. “I have always wanted to personally see how you differ from normal humans. Books aren’t quite the same, aren’t they? It really is too bad I don’t have a lab yet.” 

“Please! Help me! I’ll be good! I promise!”

“But don’t worry.” He chirps cheerfully. “I’ll be _very_ careful right here. I hope you don’t mind the lack of anesthetic.”

“NO! Please! Mercy!”

What an auspicious start to his new job! He’s barely left his home, and he’s already found something interesting to study!

* * *

“Apparently, the government recruited another genius for their Research Department!”

“They say he’s twelve!”

“Poor boy, it must have been so hard to unwilling leave his family like that _._ What were the Marines thinking forcing a child to join?” 

“Multiple PhDs!”

“Graduated from the best University this side of the Red Line with honors…” 

“They should have let him be a normal child. Now every criminal with a brain will be aiming to either kill him or kidnap him for themselves.”

“I’m telling you, man, Vagapunk will definitely take him on as a protégé!”

“Don’t be stupid, Vagapunk prefers mechanical weaponry everyone knows that, Orochimaru’s all about biology.”

“Then, maybe Caesar Clown will?”

“Ha! That second best? He’ll be too busy being jealous of the kid’s superior mind to teach properly.”

“Do you think he accepts applications for an assistant position?”

“You want to work for a kid?”

“But think of the things you could learn working for such someone with such a brilliant intellect…”

“Orochimaru found a cure for –”

“Seriously?! They’ve been trying to cure it for centuries!” 

“Did you hear about Orochimaru’s newest discovery?”

“Yeah! It’s amazing!”

“He’s so smart!” 

“Orochimaru!”

“Orochimaru!” 

“Orochimaru!”

“Lord Orochimaru, I’m sorry. I’ll be joining you soon.”

“Send him there next. Let’s see if he really is as smart as they say he is.”

* * *

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING! IDIOT, DON’T –”

** BOOM! **

…

** BOOOM! **

…

…

** CRASH! **

Orochimaru sighs and lets his head rest against the filthy ground. “Where’s Kabuto when you need him?”

His lab looked like a disaster zone. Two of the walls have buckled under the force of the explosion, including the one facing the outside, and a big chunk of what used to be the roof had narrowly avoided falling on him. Most of the furniture had been blown to pieces, and a green fire burned in the corner where he had kept his chemicals. The air was full of dust, making it difficult to breathe without choking on it. 

Aah, the experiment he was working on was most certainly useless now. So many hours of work wasted. Hopefully, his notes remained intact in their steel cabinet.

A Commodore appears in the collapsed doorway with several lower officers, their weapons drawn. They were all panting. “What happened?! Doctor Orochimaru, are you alright? Where is Louis?” 

He indifferently peers at the red spot growing underneath an enormous piece of rubble. “Louis? Dead, I imagine. Moron caused the explosion, Commodore. And after I explicitly warned him multiple times not to connect those two wires.”

“I… see.” The Commodore shift nervously. “We’ll begin digging you out right away, Doctor.”

“Good, good.” He wiggles his toes in an effort to determine the extent of his injuries. “How long do you think it’ll take to rebuilt my lab, Commodore?”

The man coughs. “You are being reassigned, Doctor. Your new lab is already waiting for you.”

“What about subordinates?” He inquires. “I appear to be in need of a new one.”

“You have just received a new request, Doctor. We’ll send him to the new location immediately. He’ll be waiting for you there.” 

* * *

“How interesting,” Orochimaru mutters to himself, peering into his microscope. The disease that had been ravaging the island for decades that he had been sent to cure appeared to be man-made. And it looked suspiciously like the prototype of some other experiments he had previously encountered deep in the bowels of the Marine Research Department. 

He taps a finger on the tabletop thoughtfully. According to the reports he had received about the virus, it appeared primarily on islands that were at odds with the government. If you read between the lines. Really, only a former shinobi would notice that little tidbit. 

So, to summarize; he was currently at risk of being infected by an incurable, extremely contagious, bio-warfare weapon that had mutated beyond its creators’ control, and now they were finally trying to limit the damage it could cause. Several decades too late. 

He shakes his head sadly, Tsunade would be spitting blood if she ever heard of this. The government better hope whatever reincarnated him didn’t reincarnate her too. 

* * *

“Doctor?” A little girl asks nervously, wringing her hands in a dress so filthy it was more fit for a rag than clothes. Like most other children on the island, Mimi was an orphan and couldn’t afford anything better. “What are we going to do now?”

He stares out at the blue horizon where the fleet of Marine ships was gathering, considering all his available options. There were distressingly few of them. 

Maybe pissing off the government had been a bad idea after all? But his foolish, softer-hearted former teammates would have been disappointed in him if he had left the situation as it had been. He’d been trying to be better this time around. No unnecessary murders, no attempted takeovers, no assassinations of heads of states… Conducting ground-breaking experimentations only on the criminals provided to him by the Marines… Orochimaru sighs heavily. If playing nice hasn’t worked, then it was time for other tactics. Tactics that offered a more permanent resolution to his current situation. 

He was going to strike the fear of whatever god they worshiped into those Marines, Orochimaru decides, shifting into his Beast Form. Let them be so terrified of him they mutiny at the very thought of returning to this island. 

The inhabitants gathered on the beach gasp in fright when his white-scaled head rises high above them. He doesn’t get offended at their sudden hesitance to approach him. He might have been nowhere near the size of Manda, but his old friend had been a freak of nature anyway, and his own fifteen meters were very impressive to anyone who hasn’t seen bigger. 

His head lowers to Mimi’s height, and he hisses at her, venom dripping from his razor-sharp fangs. “We fight, little one, that’s what. For our freedom and our lives.”

Nobody could say he hadn’t tried being peaceful first. 

* * *

“Lord Orochimaru, what is this?” Kabuto asks, peering with interest at a pair of human-sized transparent tubes filled with a greenish liquid. Inside floated two little bodies, pale-haired and pale-skinned. One was slightly larger than the other. 

He looks up from his notes and smiles. “My sons, of course.” 

The memory of the looks of horror exchanged by the Marines who had, ah, volunteered for his experiments was going to be treasured by him for a very long time. 

“You’re crazy!” A particularly vocal one yells angrily from his cell. “You can’t get away with this! The World Government won’t let you!” 

He laughs. “No, my dear, I’m a scientist. And I did get away with it.” He places his clipboard on a nearby table and approaches the man, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. “Now, why don’t we start with you, hm? Let’s see, I have so many things planned, I don’t even know what to beg with. How about –” 

* * *

Newspaper lying forgotten on his little café table, Jiraiya puts his face into his hands and tries to decide if he should bawl like a little baby or laugh like a maniac. On one hand, he now knew one of his best friends was around, on the other… He apparently had taken over an entire nation and stylized himself as the leader. Again. 

It wasn’t fair! _He_ was supposed to be the troublemaker of their team. Oro was the stick-in-the-mud genius with the questionable morality! Why did he decide to become the usurper king of a formerly World Government controlled island that had extreme strategical importance thanks to its Seastone mines?! Neverminded that it had spent the last decade being ravaged by one of the deadliest illnesses in the world! What was he planning?! 

“Jiraiya?” No… can’t be. His luck can’t be this good. Finding both of them in one day?

His head lifts, and his eyes meet familiar brown for the first time since he left Konoha for Ame and got himself killed by his former student. “Tsunade…”

**Author's Note:**

> I had been planning on writing Kisame. Or Obito. Orochimaru came out of nowhere. I blame TekoloKuautli. If you hadn’t asked me if any ninjas worked for the government this wouldn’t have happened. My mind immediately jumped to Orochimaru, and all my plans fell apart. Although, now that I think about it, Danzo would also… Fuck.  
> I don't own Naruto or One Piece.


End file.
